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Did you get a white tail that day?
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Ain't it the truth!
The daughter of a good friend went hunting for the first time with her fiance. She was carrying a .243, but had never fired anything larger than a .22. She fell asleep in the stand, and when she awoke a 10 point buck was in the middle of the greenfield. One shot brought down the prettiest 10 pointer I've ever seen.
Needless to say my friend has been howling with laughter about this for three years. Hunter's go their entire lives without bagging a trophy like that. It's enough to make a grown man cry!
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Shot-In-Freud ??....LOL...
last year I only went out once, behind a buddies property, AAAAAALLLLLLLL day and went to regroup with said bud, when I saw a pretty doewatching me...I raised the shotgun and drew a bead before noticing the collar on her neck...
my friends wild 'pet' deer that he found as a babe and frequently comes by his place to visit...often times showing off her new kids and sometimes chasing his dogs around the yard and playing...
I took my friend John wild hog hunting near my home in NE Texas a couple of years ago where I knew the hogs had been rooting. We sat there for 30-40 minutes and I caught some movement in the edge of the field. 5 BIG hogs entered the field and began to feed so we set up for a double. Just as we were about to shoot 4 White Tail does came in from our left. The hogs saw them and went on high alert, (they had no idea we were in the same zip code), when they alerted the does spooked, that in turn spooked the hogs and in 2 seconds the field was empty and we were wondering what the heck just happend! We looked at each other in amazement and then laughted all the way back to the truck.
Around noon it began sleeting, and I settled myself under a rather large red cedar tree to get out of the elements.
As I sat there, cradling my shotgun across my lap, I fell sound asleep.
Now, I was wearing a triple x beaver hat, (much like a DI's hat, but dark blue in color) and when I awoke I saw small icicles on the brim of the hat.
Not realizing what it was that I was seeing, a mere 4-5" from my nose, I jumped up with a start.
Not more than tewnty feet away from me two bucks were standing.
When I jumped up they spooked and ran across my front from left to right.
I recovered in time to get the second buck with a shot to the right shoulder.
I'd rather be lucky than good anytime.
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE
Way up North in Wisconsin, or Nort as they say, we drove to a place and settled down in some brush that split two empty corn fields. It was winter and it was about 25 degrees with no wind.
He sat down leaning against a tree to my left and behind me as I sat on my little stool with an arrow nocked and ready to draw. Just before dusk I noticed there were two bucks leading a group of doe's coming toward us diagonally across the field. I was still as a stone because the bucks were checking out the field.
Well just as one of the prize bucks, about 3 years old, was coming within about 45 yards, my brother-in-law yelled, “Oh Shite”. At that millisecond the bucks took off along with the rest of the group and I turned to him and saw a squirrel jump off of his shoulder on to the tree next to him in a panic.
The squirrel jumped on him thinking he was part of the tree. At first I was disappointed because I had an incredible chance to get a big one. Then I laughed at him when he said it scared the living crap out of him because he though the squirrel was going for his face.
We all met up a few hours latter and he brought us out to help carry his deer. We found one buck and two does within 15 feet of each other.
He shot a doe, the buck came running up to see what was going on and after the buck was shot another doe came running up to see what was going on.
My 17 year-old stepson and I were staying at my wife’s family property on Toledo Bend Reservoir, where we planned to hunt deer in the adjacent Sabine National Forest. The cabin has all of the amenities - fishing out the front door, and hunting out the back - not to mention running water, heat & a/c, kitchen and bath. It’s rustic, but a far cry from pitching a tent.
Not only is it rustic, but it’s buried as deep into the east Texas piney woods as possible. Any further and we’d be in Louisiana. We’d made the three and half-hour trip from College Station several times since July to stock the feeder with corn, which we hoped helped to hold deer in the area. The feeder is near the cabin on private property - feeders aren’t allowed on public lands. We’d spent hours before the season sighting in our rifles, readying our equipment and supplies, and purchasing both of the required hunting and public lands access permits. It’s not a cheap hobby, but we anticipate every hunting season like a three-year old anticipates Christmas - this time even more so, as it was our first time to hunt the national forest. We’d previously hunted a paid lease on private land without much success, so this year we thought we would try something new and different, with better hopes for a rewarding hunt.
The weather was warm and humid for November, but we were optimistic. Increasing our odds was a new moon, which meant the deer would likely move in the mornings & evenings, instead of foraging at night. We selected promising locations for our ladder stands. My stand was near a small rise, and The Boy’s stand overlooked a heavily traveled creek crossing. Both spots showed good sign of recent deer activity and had good transition - low growth areas opening onto areas clear from undergrowth. There was a good food source, as the ground was covered with acorns the size of my thumb from the towering oak trees competing with the even taller pines. Prospects appeared excellent for harvesting an East Texas Piney Woods Buck.
It was Saturday afternoon, around 3pm. Shooting light would be over by 5:30. It was time to get into the stands before the deer began to move. A hunter who lived nearby had knocked on the door that morning to, in a gentlemanly-like manner, let us know we would all be hunting in the same general area, and that he wanted to be sure we knew he would be hunting down a draw adjacent to where we had set up. He added that he’d seen a group of four does on the way in. We hoped the does would help to attract a buck.
We prepared to leave by donning our scent-free camouflage, specially washed only in baking soda and stored in plastic garbage bags so as to repel any odors. We had bathed thoroughly and sprayed ourselves with scent eliminator. We’d put out doe-in-heat scent that morning around the areas where we noticed activity, hoping to draw a buck within shooting range. We placed apples in our pockets for cover scent. We’d spent a lot of time and money preparing for this hunt, and didn’t want to ruin it with a buck spooked from picking up a stray man-smell. Finally we put on our fluorescent orange caps and vests (required in the national forest), loaded our rifles, and walked silently to our stands, eager, tense, and alert with the anticipation of seeing that first antler tip, gray-brown patch of hide, or silhouette through the evergreens.
We settled in and it wasn’t long before the other hunter we’d met moved through, dressed exactly as we were, silently picking his way through the brush. He hadn’t noticed me yet, and I observed the practiced way that he studied the ground for sign, took a few silent steps, stopped to slowly look around, and then repeated the process - an experienced, and likely successful, hunter. I waved my orange cap to him so he would note my location. He saw the movement immediately, and he returned the salute. He moved out of sight, and we returned to waiting, trying not to give away our position by swatting at the mosquitoes that floated around us in buzzing clouds or landed to remove a little afternoon snack from our veins.
It was about 4pm when I saw it - a flash of white deep in the woods to the southwest - exactly the location where I had anticipated the buck would appear. I readied my .308 Remington for a potential shot. Searching the scope for the deer, hoping for antlers, I instead saw something completely unexpected - a golf cart. It was, of all things, an all-white electric golf cart, complete with a windscreen, and three paunchy occupants - four if you count the golden retriever they had with them. One of the hunters was dressed in camouflage, the others wore white t-shirts. No fluorescent orange for these guys. I lowered my rifle as they approached my hunting area, picking their way around trees, stumps, and downed limbs. It was surreal - the electric golf cart made no sound other than snapping a twig now and then. They traversed my hunting area within 50 yards of my stand, then proceeded to the dirt access road about 200 yards away. They parked there for awhile, standing out like a huge white neon sign in the deep green of the pines - I suppose they thought they were hunting. I hoped they would leave via the access road since surely they had noted me in the stand dressed out in my hunter orange. But, no. A short time later, they slowly drove back, directly the way they had come - straight across my hunting area again, right over the game trail and the spot where I’d found a rub and carefully placed my doe scent earlier. Needless to say, I was incensed. If I hadn’t been so surprised, I might have been angry enough to disable their vehicle with a 180-grain round through its electric motor. They were close enough - I could have done it, and that silly thing would have forever remained in those woods as a monument to their stupidity. Besides, from the look of them it would have done them some good to do a little walking. If I’d had a cell phone with me, I would have called the game warden. It’s against the law to hunt from a vehicle or to drive off-road vehicles in the national forest. Unfortunately, my only recourse was to watch them slowly disappear back through the trees, our chances for a buck gone, at least for that afternoon.
Shortly after they were out of sight, I heard the sharp crack of a rifle - likely the other hunter we’d met, judging from the location. I figured the golf cart might have spooked a buck to him. Or, maybe he decided to put one through their motor. I almost hope next time I’m out there that I find that rusting golf cart, buried in pine needles, with a nice, neat hole through it.
We went back on the first day of deer season and hiked in about four miles and climbed down the steep sides of the canyon and set up just after dawn. My friend set up on a stand and I walked around the back side of the marsh and started driving his way. I was up to my knees in freezing muck before I went 10 steps. I was thrashing around trying to keep my boots from coming off when I heard him shoot.
I backed out of the marsh and went back the way I came and found him struggling to drag a big whitetail buck out of the swamp. It had run about a hundred yards before dropping. It was then that we realized why no one else hunted this area. We had to get a 150 lb deer out of the thick brushy swamp and up the shear canyon walls with no rope. It started sleeting after about an hour and it took us all day to inch our way up to the top dragging the deer. He finally went and got a farm tractor to drag it the rest of the way and we didn't get out of the woods until well after dark. Our parents were worried sick thinking that we'd been shot by some city hunter.